


Combinatorics

by Hekateras



Category: Invisible Inc. (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Gen, Snippets, loosely main campaign based
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24251641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hekateras/pseuds/Hekateras
Summary: A collection of snippets reflecting different agent loadouts and campaign scenarios.
Kudos: 7





	1. Big loud mouth

Valdes is waiting for him when he gets to the roof, arms crossed and face carefully blank. Her eyes lock onto him when he steps - staggers, really - out of the elevator, gives him a quick once-over. She's not the only bird waiting for him - the chopper is behind her, engines running idle.

"Hey," Decker says lamely.

She gives him a curt nod. "I've got Decker. Preparing for extraction," she says, the words meant for the Operator in both their ears. Decker scoffs. He'd just checked in with the Operator fifteen floors ago. Like he was going to get lost in the elevator, come on, now.

Valdes and him have been working together for damn near eight years now. Having a partner of eight years, he muses, is a lot like having a spouse. (Probably. It's not like his marriage ever got to the point where he'd be able to make a side-by-side comparison.)

Valdes is quiet as they get into the chopper, professional, but her lips are ever so slightly pursed. She's waiting to see how bad a shape he's in before the tonguelashing begins.

As they climb into the cockpit seats - or hobble, in his case - Decker would give anything for a drink. But that's what got him into this mess, isn't it?

Valdes has already figured out that he's not injured, just supremely hungover.

She silently hands him a pack of all-purpose hangover pills and straps herself in. Then she's adjusting her headset and addressing the Operator again, to coordinate their trip back to HQ. To Decker, not a word.

Boy, he's in for it now, huh?


	2. Casualty

Gladstone can heave a tiny sigh of relief when the team is beamed back to the jet, site list in hand. As dire as being down to two functional agents may be, being down to zero would be immeasurably worse.

Still in the back of the jet where the transporter pad is, Dr. Xu and Banks seem to be bickering about cybersecurity practices or something of the like as they change out of their tactical gear. Hardly the team she would have chosen for these ride-or-die circumstances, but proficient enough. If they manage to be half as competent as they are eccentric, the corporations will never know what hit them. 

Gladstone tunes their conversation out as soon as she deems the contents to be low priority. She enters the newly-obtained site list disk into a drive. Incognita's face lights up one of the screens.

"Infiltration target candidates detected. ETA to full analysis in battery efficiency mode: 17 minutes," Incognita says, as pleasantly as ever. Well. Gladstone can hardly fault her for a machine's implacability. She's ready to move on to the next task - Monst3r's new contact node - when Incognita's face reappears.

"Detailed Agency casualty report available.", the AI adds. "Would you like to review it now?"

Gladstone looks up in surprise, then taps the screen once to pull it up. Of course. Unlike the initial casualty report compiled via remote biometric data tracking twelve hours ago, while Incognita was offline, this newer version contains higher confidence assessments more accurately reflecting agent status in the aftermath of the attack. Agent files, marked grey and red, float across the screen. Three names previously marked 'KIA'are now marked 'MIA'. Gladstone stares at them. Somehow, even just three name seem like quite the striking difference. That realisation is as close as she comes to feeling anything.

Behind her, her two surviving agents have gone very quiet indeed.

Gladstone clicks her tongue and closes the report.

"We've got work to do," she tells them, in lieu of an in memoriam.


	3. Augmentations

"Nika, you have incoming", Central points out over comms. 

Nika presses her back to the wall and chances a peek over the corner. To her bare eyes, the corridor is empty. Her augmented reality view supplies additional intel. The end of the corridor is bathed in stark red to signify enemy line of sight, and a dotted path down the hallway and through one of the doors denotes the predicted patrol pattern. That means an opening, very soon. Good. She can wait.

The augmented reality chip - a realtime point of connection with Incognita and the AI's complex system of data integration from all assets in the field - still feels like cheating a bit, to this day. Still, Nika is grateful for it. They need every edge they can get.

"The T.A.G. pistol is proving useful," Nika admits grudgingly, her voice quiet as she murmurs into the comms and retreats to her well-hidden corner to wait.

"And to think you didn't want to buy it," Murphy teases. Though Nika cannot see her, she's certain the other agent is grinning fondly into her comms.

Nika huffs in response. "I think real weapons are a greater priority right now. But still. It is useful, as I said."

"And it doesn't get anyone killed, that's also a plus-"

Murphy's reply is interrupted by Central. "The way is clear. Nika, you're up," the boss tells her, and Nika doesn't waste a second.

She clicks the safety off her disrupter and slips down the hallway and through the same door the guard just went through. She clicks the safety off her adrenal regulator, as well.

Sparks fill her veins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's been a lot of talk on the Invisible Inc. Discord about the best way to lorify the gameplay aspect of the missions and explain how the agents are actually able to coordinate their actions so well and so quickly. (There are certain tidbits suggesting the agents are under direct remote control via neural uplink, but this doesn't work too well with the agents retaining, well... agency.) I've come to the headcanon decision that, since we know augmented reality/vision is a fairly commonplace thing (Holocircuit Overloaders), the agents can just plain see the danger zones and other UI tidbits just as the player/Operator can.


	4. Expendable

" **STOP THERE**!"

Prism looks up and freezes. The goon has her at gunpoint. The strange, stark-yellow of his uniform is garish against the grey walls of the facility, and she can barely see his face past the flickering layers of his forcefield projection shield. The fact that she can't see his face unsettles her more than the gun. Prism can read faces. She'd feel more in control, somehow, if she could see his.

Her augmented vision supplies a handy little ' **8** ' above his head to indicate the layers of armour you'd have to get through. Just like that, Prism knows there isn't going to be any support swooping in from the side to take him down. Monst3r's gun is good, but not that good.

Monst3r. She's too well-trained to glance, even briefly, to where he sits on her left. Hunkered down behind some implausibly fancy high-tech decor. Gun in one hand, and the whatchamacallit - the MacGuffin, he called it - cradled against his side. The guard doesn't know he's there. Yet.

Her thoughts race. Already, she can see her options laid out for her. Option A: Do nothing, get shot. Option B: dash into cover beside Monst3r, but from there, there's nowhere to go for either of them, and they'd be sitting ducks. MIssion failure, Incognita dead, the jet shot out of the sky. Option C: Step forward and to the right, get the guard to follow her, his line of sight shifting with her movement. If she does _that_ , there's a chance for Monst3r to slip out through the door behind her. With any luck, he'll be _just_ out of sight.

Get shot, but for a higher purpose. Maybe.

The interface in her vision has already marked the best spot for her to move. "Thanks, Central," she mutters, but there's no malice behind the sarcasm.

"This is gonna suck," Prism hisses under her breath, and moves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> II would be a much weaker game if it had randomly generated characters rather than people with specific personalities we can get to know and grow attached to, fite me on this. It makes the tough decisions that much tougher.


	5. Borrowed time

"There are three Enforcers on the way. You need to move _now_ , Internationale."

"I'm... getting there, Central," Maria grinds out through gritted teeth. She heaves and manages to drag the body in her arms to the next bit of cover.

"Leave Sharp." Central's voice is cold, commanding. "The power cell you're carrying is the only thing that matters right now. Without it, there is no point in even coming back to the jet."

Maria grunts in response. There is no way she's leaving anyone to the dogs here, not even Sharp. Not knowing what they'd do to him. She keeps dragging. She wastes a precious second when the cyborg's metallic shin gets stuck on a table leg, then knocks over a lamp.

"Internationale, you have less than twenty seconds before the room is breached. You do NOT have enough time to drag him out. Leave Sharp, and get out _now_!"

She hears a door slam in the next room and the shouting of Enforcers. Dropping the body, Maria staggers upright and tries to catch her breath.

"Internationale, I have _given you an order_!"

"Damn it," Maria hisses. She makes sure the power cell is on her and sprints through the doorway to the exit room, slamming it shut behind her. She hears the voices of Enforcers inside half a breath later. Ten more seconds, and they will breach this room, too.

She steps into the elevator.

"Mission successful," she says grimly, and pushes the button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conflict potential between Internationale (overburdened by an "unfortunate amount of social concern", with strong ideals, and who'd probably unionise her colleagues given half a chance) and Central (in a situation where the authoritarian chain of command is very much in place but also Central desperately *needs* the agents to cooperate, possibly more than they need her) is something that deserves to be explored in way more detail than a snippet, but there ya go.


	6. Recognition

"I've removed the other guard, but the captain's still there," Shalem says calmly while reloading. He keeps an eye on the room through the open door.

"I'll take care of him," Sharp replies.

Shalem gets to watch as the cyborg approaches the lone guard from behind, then takes him out with all the grace of a ten-year-old hitting a piñata. Shalem curls his lip in distaste. Clearly, someone who learned to rely on augmentations before proper technique. And to think, Central probably thinks she's pairing up like with like. Then again, maybe not. He's always credited her with a better grip on reality than that.

With the captain down, Sharp can finally get close enough to catch a peek of the detainee. There's a pause as the AI runs them through facial recognition.

"He's not one of ours," Central informs them. Her voice is entirely dispassionate, but a moment of disappointment hangs between them, silently, in the air.

To be fair, for Shalem it is exclusively the disappointment that there isn't going to be a third agent for the cyborg to direct his nonsense at, even briefly. He's not sure what the cyborg is thinking, but it probably involves having more "meatbags" to show off to.

Unfortunately for the prisoner, they're all set for cash after that vault heist the previous day. The bonus they'd get from the ransom would be welcome, but not so welcome that it's worth the risk of a slow, tedious escort through the facility after all the time it took them to locate him in the first place.

The two mercenaries walk out the way they came in, and leave the prisoner in his cell, pounding on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm guessing these two aren't huge fans of escort missions. :^)


	7. Guava

Decker comes to with a groan, the sterile lights of the jet's minuscule med bay glaring straight through his retinas.

"Good. You're awake," Nika says. Her sleeves are rolled up even higher than usual, but even so, haven't quite been able to dodge the odd speck of blood on them. His blood, most likely.

"Fuck," Decker says with feeling. "Don't we have a medgel?" Medgel comes with a painkiller in that ungodly slurry of guava-flavoured muck, he's pretty sure.

"The vest took the brunt of it. You had some bleeding, but no severe damage. You'll be fine." Nika turns away and washes her hands of it, literally.

"Wait. What happened to Red?" Decker asks, struck by a startling awareness that Valdes isn't there to nag him about having gotten shot.

"Flash grenade," Nika says simply, implacably, and leaves the room.

Decker stares after her.

It takes him a while to muster up the energy to leave the cot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decker & Internationale are the Reynauld & Dismas of Invisible Inc. They're both the "canon" starters, and the similarities don't end there.
> 
> Also, I like to think that the agents wear specially-designed high-tech bulletproof vests that direct plasma fire along survivable routes and that's how they routinely survive getting shot and then revived. But it would certainly be nothing to sneeze at, even then.


	8. Honeypot

It is a testament to their dire straits that Derek does something he hasn't done in years: namely, stand with his back to an open door as he tries to worm his way into the security hub.

"A daemon got through my counterattack. We're almost there," he speaks urgently into the comms.

In theory, Gladstone's team should be more than reliable enough to have his back - quite literally. In theory, she's never accepted anything but the best of the best in her recruitment practices, unconventional as they may have always been.

In practice, she's also the one who let an adrenaline junkie and an accused murderer, and worse, aspiring neurvelist onto the team, once upon a time. In practice, this facility so far seems to have an appalling lack of exfiltration routes more sophisticated than an early 21st century fire escape. Derek isn't quite sure how he's ended up here, of all places, but has a sinking suspicion that he may in fact have volunteered for it.

There's a thud of heavy boots outside the door. " **HEY**!" The gruff yell of hired muscle pulls Derek sharply out of his work, and reflexively, he dives to the side of the console to take cover behind it.

In a somewhat surreal sequence, Dr. Xu calmly closes the door on the Enforcer and attaches a device to it that Derek recognises as a heavily modified booby trap. The agent carefully steps to the side, an unnerving efficiency to his movements that suggests he has done this dozens of times, possibly in his off hours, and possibly for fun. In fact, he seems to be _humming_ under his breath.

The door flies off its hinges as it's kicked in, but the Enforcer is toppling with it, his body convulsing with unchecked current.

"Monst3r, we need that door open. Get back to the terminal." Barely a second wasted and Central is already chiding him. He scrambles upright and resumes the hack.

"Now where was I? Oh yes. Here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monst3r's voice acting makes the game about 2000% better.


	9. 8965

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You really have to wonder what happens to the agents after the Omni Mainframe.

"What happened?" Valdes asks helplessly. Her voice is lost and bewildered. She's not really asking. She just wants someone to talk her out of the realisation she's already had.

Decker is not that someone. He shrugs at her from the other side of the couch, then mutes the holoset.

"I think we won," he says quietly.

They're in a ratty hotel room and the afternoon's events are on the news.

**Author's Note:**

> This is more of a writing exercise as I try to muster up the discipline and energy to finish my longer, plottier II fics. But this was still fun to do. II is fantastic at providing these microcosm drama moments.


End file.
